Think of desktop virtualisation as a superhero. That's not to say the software arrives in Lycra with a flowing cape more that when the broad and accumulated spread of software within your organisation stops feeling like a racing car and starts feeling more like a thicket of uprooted trees hitting a bridge in a flash-flood, you don't need more of the same thinking that got to that condition.
You need a transformative change.
Transformative changes are either painful (people get fired and their successors get to implement the Brave New World) or they are an epiphany (the guy in a tight-fitting costume has arrived and swept away the logjam with a single glance of his X-ray vision).
Desktop virtualisation helps those IT professionals looking at complex and long-standing deployments to make platform change into a longer-term, softer-impact process.
This white paper:
Describes the architecture that underpins desktop and application virtualisation
Lifts the lid on the terminology to help with design, sizing, selection and implementation
Provides a view of, and links to details on, the Microsoft Desktop Virtualisation portfolio
Illustrates using these products through a case study from an early adopter
Outlines some custom and practice guidelines for Windows 7 guests
Dips a toe in the much larger topic of Virtual Machine Management
Explains what's free and what's paid for
Presents a sample checklist for a VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) project that IT professionals can use as a starting point
